Most Americans consider slavery as an issue of the American past. The unfortunate reality is human trafficking not only exists in the 21st century, but is a $31-billion dollar industry worldwide. Join us for our "Human Trafficking – Slavery in the 21st Century" program where our expert panelists will:

Define Human Trafficking

Study how much this problem has impacted the world

Describe partnerships that are essential for helping victims and prosecuting traffickers

Terry Coonan is the founding Executive Director of the FSU Center for the Advancement of Human Rights and a practicing human rights and immigration attorney. The FSU Human Rights Center offers pro bono legal representation to asylum-seekers, torture survivors, and victims of human trafficking. The Center provides pro bono legal assistance to victims of sex trafficking and labor trafficking, and works closely with state and federal law enforcement officials in the investigation and prosecution of these cases. He served as the lead researcher on the 2010 "Florida Strategic Plan on Human Trafficking" commissioned by the Florida Legislature and Governor's Office, and was an appointee of the Governor on The Florida Statewide Task Force to Combat Human Trafficking. He previously co-directed the 2004 research project Florida Responds to Human Trafficking. Professor Coonan has trained law enforcement agencies and service providers nationwide on the Trafficking Victim Protection Act, and was one of the designers of the Justice Department and FDLE training curricula on human trafficking. Since 2004, he has assisted Florida legislators in drafting Florida's statutes on human trafficking.

Detective James McBride was selected as the lead investigator on the Clearwater/Tampa Bay Area Human Trafficking Task Force in August of 2006. As the lead investigator he is responsible for building relationships with all ethnic communities, non-governmental agencies, faithbased organizations and law enforcement agencies within Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties. His duties include the investigation of human trafficking; sex trafficking, domestic sex trafficking, labor trafficking, domestic servitude, human smuggling and fraudulent immigration document organizations. Detective McBride and the Clearwater Area Human Trafficking Task Force are assisting the Regional Community Policing Institute and the Department of Justice with the Immersion Learning Program. This program was designed to assist other Human Trafficking Task Forces with investigative techniques and task force management. Detective McBride is currently partnering with the Florida Regional Community Policing Institute as the President of the International Association of Human Trafficking Investigators.

Bradley Myles currently serves as Polaris Project's Executive Director and CEO. He has been working on combating the issue of human trafficking for the past decade. Mr. Myles works on all areas of Polaris Project's comprehensive approach to fighting human trafficking, including over-seeing the direct victims services efforts of local offices in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey, supervising the policy team's advocacy initiatives at the Federal and state levels, and providing strategic oversight for Polaris Project's operation of the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline. Mr. Myles serves as Polaris Project's primary liaison to the Humanity United-funded national coalition entitled the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), the FBI Innocence Lost Federal Working Group, the U.S. Department of Justice National Advisory Group on trafficking, and the U.S. Department of Justice-funded Washington, D.C. Human Trafficking Task Force. His anti-trafficking efforts have been covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360.

Future Broadcasts

Stay tuned. Information on future broadcasts will be posted as it becomes available.

This project was supported by Grant No. 2010-DD-BX-K018 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance to St. Petersburg College. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the SMART office, and the Office for Victims of Crime. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not represent the official position or policies of the United States Department of Justice.